Sonlight Homeschooling Blog

May. 10, 2019

8 Ways to Wrap Up Your Homeschool Curriculum in Time for Summer

Are you on track to finish your homeschool curriculum by your end-of-the-year target date? Or are you further behind than you had planned? If the latter, you could probably use some tricks for wrapping up your homeschool curriculum in time for summer.

As I write this, we are on Week 28 of History / Bible / Literature E and Sonlight 100. I keep counting the weeks on the calendar just to make sure we’ll be finished by the second week in June to the day. For this box-checking Type A Mom, that’s cutting it close! In the past, we’ve finished our 36-week Sonlight curriculum by the end of May, but this year we took some weeks off when we welcomed a new baby in December. I’m motivated to finish by June 14th so we can

fully embrace a summer rest
enjoy summer activities
get our homeschool portfolios together
meet with our homeschool evaluator
submit our report to the school district by the end of June

(Just writing that list makes my heart race!)

I need to remind myself regularly that I don’t have to check every box.

Sonlight Curriculum is less a law to be followed and more a country to be explored. It intentionally provides much more than we could ever tackle in one year so that we are immersed by goodness, truth, and beauty on every side.

My children and I have the freedom to read, learn, and explore at a pace that benefits us and suits our circumstances. That’s why I love Sonlight!

It’s okay if we don’t neatly check off Week 36 by 5 p.m. on June 14th. At the same time, we have a couple of strategies that could help us to finish the curriculum in a timely fashion or be at peace with what we have accomplished during the school year. We can choose from among many tried-and-true options when we come to June with leftover curriculum.

Option #1: Fulfill Your State’s Homeschool Requirements and Enjoy Your Summer Vacation

Did you know that we don’t have to complete the 36-week curriculum in 36 weeks? Actually, we don’t have to complete the curriculum at all. Of course, most of us want to complete each HBL because they are packed with fascinating books, projects, discussion questions, and lessons. The truth is that we don’t have to check all of the boxes.

We do need to adhere to our state’s homeschool requirements though. Here in Pennsylvania where I live, we must log 180 days or 990 hours of school work. The home educator decides what constitutes a full homeschool day’s work. If my child has logged the required number of days in earnest work, we’ve successfully completed a homeschool year. At that point, I am legally free to close the books right where we are and put my feet up for a couple of months. (If you have questions about your state’s homeschool requirements, consult your state’s homeschool law.)

Option #2: Keep Going Until You Have Finished the Entire Curriculum

Some families just keep going with the HBL until it is complete even if that means going into the summer months. They say that there is still plenty of summer fun, and they feel good about getting as much as possible out of the curriculum.

Option #3: Double Up

If you want your child to complete the 36-week curriculum, but don’t have enough weeks in the school year, consider doubling up some of the subjects. For example, each day read two days' worth of History, Bible, and Literature and finish in half the time. Or double up math lessons, doing one in the morning and one in the evening. Instead of doing science twice a week, do it every afternoon.

Option #4: Add Saturday Mornings as School Days

In a few hours on Saturday mornings, you may be able to read several days’ worth of history, do an extra math lesson, or read through an entire week’s worth of Bible. Adding Saturdays is a simple way to get ahead in plenty of time to wrap up your homeschool curriculum for the summer!

Option #5: Use Audio Books

While you are reading aloud the current week’s assignments, begin listening to the next reader on audio book. Then you’ll have extra time to double-up on lessons or read ahead in another book.

Option #6: Stop Where You Are and Pick Up Again In the Fall

Just because you wrap up the school year doesn’t mean you have to miss out on the unfinished curriculum. When the new school year rolls around, simply pick up where you ended in June. Begin the next Sonlight HBL whenever you are ready. Many families report completing two HBL’s every three years. Others intentionally take twice the amount of time to work through one HBL over two years. Feel free to make the curriculum work for your child and your family’s situation.

Option #7: Save the Read-Alouds for Summer Reading

Consider skipping the Read-Alouds for now and focusing the remaining school year on finishing the math, history, language arts, and Bible portions of the curriculum. Make time in the summer to double-back and enjoy those Read-Alouds at a more leisurely pace.

Option #8: Fit in Extra Work Throughout the Summer

Speaking of summer, consider portioning the incomplete curriculum items throughout the summer.

Use a Read-Aloud as a bedtime story.
Read the Bible lessons over breakfast.
Listen to an audio book on your vacation.
Do a few science experiments when it’s too hot to go outside.
Assign a packet for the summer with three journal prompts, three math pages per week, and three Readers. Kids get the packets on the last day of school and do them at their leisure throughout the summer.

Tagged behind, curriculum, scheduling, summer, tips | Leave a comment

May. 8, 2019

An Easy Way to Celebrate Growth in Your Homeschool

By Sarita

Some homeschool milestones feel huge. There's nothing quite like the joy of watching a child learn to read. But most milestones are a bit quieter than that. And they often go unnoticed.

As you go along day by day faithfully raising and educating your children, I suggest you take a step back and periodically look at some of those quieter forms of growth. They can be so encouraging, especially when you wonder if you're falling behind.

You may find this a great year-end activity, or a way to shore up your motivation as you plod along. Looking back can also be a huge testament to God's work in our lives.

Think back to the beginning of this school year and what your children were like then. Where were they academically, socially, emotionally, spiritually, physically? Now think about how they've grown and changed this year. Take a sheet of paper and complete the following sentences at least five times for each child.

Let's say you have a child named Sam:

"At the beginning of the school year, Sam ______________. Now, Sam ______________."

Keep writing until you are rejoicing in how Sam has grown this year.

Perhaps he learned to ride a bike or how to share with his sister.
Maybe he finally grasped long division.

You could think about specific subjects, character issues, major accomplishments, relational growth, etc.

If you captured photos of your child’s first day, be sure to take one on the last day of school, too. Then you can compare the physical changes that have taken place as well. (They grow so fast, don’t they?)

Use this paper as a keepsake to review in the years to follow. In addition, a Sonlight Memory Book is a great tool to document your children’s growth throughout the year. After you have captured how much your children have grown, why not celebrate your own growth as well? Sometimes it may feel as if our struggles never bring change, but as we follow Christ, he does work in our hearts.

Taking the long view can be a true act of praise to see how God has grown us over the past decade. Try to write ten statements like this:

"Ten years ago, I _________________. Now, I ________________."

Keep it positive, and thank God for the ways he has grown you into someone a little more loving, a little more mature, a little more Christ-like. Although everything from academic growth to spiritual growth can seem painfully slow sometimes, when we take a longer view we can see that we are in fact growing up.

To paraphrase John Newton, may we all say, "I am not the person I ought to be, I am not the person I wish to be, and I am not the person I hope to be. But I am not the person I used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am."

Praise the Lord for that!

Blessings to you and yours,
Sarita

Tagged academics, celebration, end of year, growing, maturity, progress | 1 Comment

May. 6, 2019

Kitchen Chemistry: Testing pH Levels with Cabbage

By Gina Munsey

This kitchen chemistry tutorial shows you how to test pH levels with red cabbage. Use the free printable page to record your results.

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Tagged activities, chemistry, experiments, homeschool, Learning Activities, printable, science, tutorial | Leave a comment

Apr. 29, 2019

3 Ways to Know Your Kids are Retaining Their Homeschool Lessons

By Heather Mills Schwarzen

You’re convinced that the state-mandated, fill-in-the-bubble tests are not terribly helpful. Instead, you're certain that sitting with your child one-on-one day in and day out gives you a much better gauge of his skill mastery. But you’ve got a niggling curiosity… are your kids really retaining what you’ve covered in your homeschool lessons?

It’s normal to wonder what information is sticking with your kids. As homeschool parents, testing reveals just as much about us as it does our students:

Are we presenting information in the best ways?
Are we offering the right environment for learning?
Are we using the optimum level and right curriculum?

These can be important questions to ask. But is a written test the best way to assess what your kids remember and how you can do your job better? Usually, no.

Do Homeschoolers Test?

While tests, in all their incarnations, are a necessary evil in society, they aren’t usually required in homeschooling. Some states do require annual testing, and college aptitude tests in high school are generally unavoidable. But Sonlight’s History / Bible / Literature programs don’t actually come with written assessments. And your child can, with no ill effect, sail through four years of upper level Apologia Science without unwrapping the test booklet.

Assessing a child’s understanding of a topic in a creative way is often a more complete picture of what he or she actually knows. Plus it reveals insights about the effectiveness of your teaching methods. Most homeschooling parents have already realized that how something has always been done is often not the best way to do it.

Thinking Outside the Testing Box

So how does a homeschool parent test without, well… , testing?

Anything that digs into previously covered material can be used to assess retention. That conversation you and your 10-year-old had about Across Five Aprils while washing dishes at the sink? The one where he shared detail after detail about the Civil War? Put that down as an oral test because you now know how firm his grasp is on the history you presented.

Your first and third grader just cordoned off an area of the backyard and began a detailed reenactment of the action in Archaeologists Dig For Clues? Listen close, because you might get first-hand feedback on how well they understand the concept of uncovering ancient life—no true or false questions required!

Some other options that will get the job done painlessly:

1. Create a Review Game

Using any board game as a review is easy. Simply ask questions from the appendices of your Instructor’s Guide instead of rolling dice or pulling cards. Students must provide a correct answer before advancing their token. Nearly any game be used in this way! Make sure you play along as well, allowing your kids to make up their own questions to ask you!

2. Assign a Project

There are dozens of unique ways to know your kids are retaining their homeschool lessons without the confines of a test:

making a display board of facts
writing a comic book of a historical figure’s life
pulling together images for a slide show
presenting a scene from a novel
creating a diorama of a scientific discovery

3. Let the Student Be the Teacher

Let kids demonstrate what they know:

Have your child perform a science experiment while explaining what’s happening.
Let your child make a short movie to illustrate the steps of a math formula

By flipping the script and letting the study be the teacher, they might even be able to pass on their newfound knowledge to their younger siblings— a decided bonus!

Adding these assessment tools to your toolbox will help you revisit areas that need more work and move on from topics that have been thoroughly covered. They’ll help you tweak your presentation skills as you work to become the homeschool teacher your kids need. You will learn to use your strengths and teaching style to maximum advantage. Best of all, these creative assessment methods will answer any questions you might have about how your kids are doing— without stress!

Homeschool Placement Tests — Testing can be useful when choosing a curriculum!

FREE PLACEMENT TESTS

Tagged assessment, Homeschooling, mastery, measuring, Testing | 1 Comment

Apr. 26, 2019

It's Not All Rainbows and Butterflies: Homeschooling Is Hard

By Deana Wood

Homeschooling is not perfect. It also is not the answer to all the world’s problems. It’s not even the answer to all your family’s problems. So much of what you will see on social media paints a picture of a happy homeschooling family where all things are wonderful. But the truth is that it's work. Homeschooling is hard work.

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Tagged challenges, Encouragement, homeschool moms, Homeschooling | Leave a comment

Apr. 24, 2019

Help! My High Schooler Hasn't Been Doing His Work!

By Heather Mills Schwarzen

You know you’re a little behind in checking those Creative Writing assignments, but every day, your high schooler has his Sonlight Student Guide out, and a book in his face. You’ve seen him at the computer, day in and day out, as you’ve hustled a load of clean laundry from the dryer to the coach while simultaneously listening to your middle schooler read aloud. You know he’s working.

And then, you finally scrape together a moment of free time and pull out your own Instructor’s Guide. Things seem off. You compare week numbers, backtracking to find individual assignments. You’re concerned. Your concern turns to surprise, your surprise turns to shock, and just like that, the gig is up! Your high schooler is severely off track, and he didn’t clue you in.

Who is Responsible for the Lapse?

Your first reaction is probably to drag your teenager to the table and read him the riot act. And yes, it’s true that the burden for completing the workload suggested in the Student Guide falls on the student. Sonlight has taken the work out of planning high school— so much so that it’s tempting to hand over that guide and assume your kid has all the tools he needs to succeed at his disposal.

But no curriculum works in a vacuum. You’re not meant to shelve your own Instructor Guide and check out.

Instead, you’re meant to find freedom in giving your high schooler some independence to develop the skills of self-led learning… while providing much-needed accountability and support. So if you suddenly find that six weeks’ worth of reading has gone undone, the burden of responsibility is shared evenly between teacher and student.

What’s Missing from the Assignments?

Once you’ve gotten past the relational issues of realizing what’s happened (and don’t be fooled, it does feel relational!), it’s time to begin assessing what’s missing. Let the personal sense of indignation go and take inventory.

Check everything.
Compile a master list of assignments.
Correct any work that’s been sitting in your To Do folder as well, making sure that it’s appropriate and done to your standards.

You may find that your high schooler has dropped only writing assignments or only chemistry. More often, this kind of slip will show up in multiple areas, so be thorough.

When Did The Missing Work Start?

A full accounting of missing work will often point succinctly to where the breakdown began, unless your child has been attempting to catch up and has filled in some of the gaps on his own. It might also show where you stepped back and lost track of progress— which will help with your next step.

Why Did the Lapse Happen?

Things were fine until

the new baby was born
your child started a new part-time job
a new skill was introduced
your family started volunteering at the senior center three days a week

Having an idea of where the break occurred makes understanding what happened that much easier. There could be learning issues, emotional needs that have to be addressed, or comprehension difficulties at work. Of course, all of this is assuming that there is a verifiable underlying cause.

Let’s get real: sometimes, the work has gone undone because your teenager simply didn’t want to do it, or because he has been wasting time elsewhere. Maybe you have a real reason, too, or maybe you’re just stretched thin and didn’t feel like you needed to check in. At any rate, it’s time for a hard conversation about priorities, follow through, and time management.

How Are We Going to Catch Up with Homeschool?

List in hand, it’s now time to take what you’ve learned and move to the action phase. Depending on the length of time this has been going on and the cause, you get to decide what's appropriate:

Natural consequences time—your teen will do all the work, and he's done when he's done.
Grace time—you decide to forgive a portion of the work, abridge assignments, or change the format in which the work must be completed.

Being aware of your state’s requirement for grading and graduation is important here. Come up with a plan, and support your student on a daily basis for the best results. Remember to address all the issues at play, and not just give a checklist of work. This is a great opportunity to mentor your older child through time management, minimizing distractions, and creating an effective work environment if those things haven’t yet been done in your homeschool.

At the end of the process, hopefully you will have guided your child through something much more formative and character-building than a punitive smackdown. Remember that, no matter how grown up those 15-, 16-, 17-, and 18-year-olds seem, they’re still works in progress. Using this lapse as part of their education and discipleship takes a potential failure and turns it into a valuable learning opportunity. Hold on to that, mom, and extend grace all around!

HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIVES

Tagged behind, curriculum, high school, scheduling, teens, Time Management | Leave a comment

Apr. 22, 2019

3 Ways to Keep Track of and Distinguish Characters in Read-Alouds

By Veronica Soto

A story is more than words on a page. It’s the voices of the characters that keep readers engaged and propel the unfolding of the plot. Sonlight is a literature-rich program, and as such, there dozens of story lines and characters to keep track of in your Read-Alouds. Don’t be surprised if your child finds some books more difficult (or less interesting) than others because it is harder to keep track of the characters. If you and your children struggle to remember who is speaking or which character is which, here are three ways to keep track of and distinguish characters in your Read-Alouds.

1. Use a Different Voice for Each Character

Using voices audibly differentiates among characters. Tightening the neck and jaw regions or lifting or lowering your neck or chin can create higher or lower pitched voices. Changing the shape of your mouth while reading changes your voice somewhat. Try speaking while smiling, grimacing, clenching teeth, or covering your teeth with your lips.
Change the speed of your reading. Some characters are excitable and speak quickly. Others are more thoughtful or are slow talkers.
Use accents. Think of a character from a TV show or movie that reminds you of how you think the Read-Aloud character might speak. Then mimic that accent. Don’t worry if your Dutch accent sounds more Russian, and your Russian accent comes out sounding rather French. Children won’t mind and will understand that you aren’t able to reproduce the accents authentically. Any change in accent will help them keep track of which character is talking.
Pause to read ahead. You might need to take a break before reading dialogue to check who the character is and get your voice ready. That’s okay. Figure out who is speaking, then keep going with your voices.
Save your ordinary voice for the main character and narrator. This trick makes it easier to keep track of what’s going on in the story. Almost all my main characters sound just like me and only the secondary characters sound like other people. If there’s more than one main character, usually the first one sounds like me.
Use audiobooks to get ideas. Mimic the voices used in audiobooks!
Use audiobooks as your substitute. Most of the time, I feel my children get a richer family experience by listening to me read, rather than an audiobook reader. But, there are some fantastic audiobook productions with a variety of voices that clearly portray a bevy of characters. For difficult books, having a professional reader can help your child to keep track of the different people in the story and deepen their understanding. Just make sure to listen along with your children, so you can discuss the deep concepts or the sad parts together.

Remember, the point isn’t to sound exactly the way the character ought to sound. The point is to make the listening easier on your reader. As long as the small changes in your voice help to achieve that goal, then that’s all you need.

2. Make a Chart of the Different Speakers

Instead of or in addition to using voices, a chart is a great reference tool. Use poster board, a chalkboard, a dry erase board, or even a piece of notebook paper to list the central characters. The act of making the chart is useful, and then you can refer to it regularly during Read-Aloud times.

For example, Walk the World’s Rim in History / Bible/ Literature D has a lot of Spanish characters who are very different from each other. After listing them all, we write a few words to describe each person. Here's an example of our list :

Chakoh: Native American boy. Family starving. Eats lizards. Going to Mexico City to find his own medicine. (Main voice)
Esteban: Esta Bien means he’s okay in Spanish. African slave. Tall and strong. Very smart. Friend to Chakoh. (Deep, strong, staccato)
Cabeza De Vaca: Name means Head of Cow in Spanish. He’s also the head of expedition. (Less deep, very crisp, strong, authoritative)
Dorantes: Name sounds like Doritos. Owner of Esteban. Willing to leave behind members of his team. (Whining, wheedling)
Castillo: Name means castle in Spanish. Priest, belongs to the “castles” or large Catholic churches in Mexico. (Soft, calm, quiet)

3. Use Drawings

I find drawings, too, help my children visualize each character from a Read-Aloud.

Draw a picture next to each name on a list. Drawings can show what the character might look like or things that remind you of their identity. For example, for Chakoh, we draw a boy or a medicine bag. For Cabeza de Vaca, we could draw a cow. For Castillo, we might draw a church that looks somewhat like a castle.
Draw pictures of what is happening in the story during Read-Alouds time. Label the main characters to help keep them straight in the drawings. Don’t worry if the pictures look funny or aren’t entirely accurate. If they add things to the picture that aren’t in the story, they’re simply expanding the story in their mind, which shows they are internalizing the message. (A good thing!)
Use coloring pages to go along with the stories. Besides coloring, draw or write in extra details to remember what’s going on.
Make cartoons of the story. My children often draw cartoons with a funny punchline or that point out something funny that happened in the book. I am not a good illustrator, so when it is my turn to sketch our drawings, I rely on creative stick figures.

The main point of the drawings, or voices, or the charts isn’t to create an accurate description of every detail or point in the story. It is to help you and your children understand what is going on in the story, without getting confused. It’s okay to have fun with these tricks and make them inventive. We often draw alternate endings if we don't like the one in the book or make satirical cartoons that point out ways the thinking of the characters doesn’t make sense.

By using these tips, hopefully you can create an atmosphere where your children are able to keep track of what character is which so they can get lost in the story of their Read-Alouds.

Literature-based learning is an educational philosophy based on children's natural curiosity and love for stories. It uses outstanding books and delightful stories as the centerpiece for learning.

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Tagged Homeschooling, read-alouds, reading, Teaching Tips, tips | Leave a comment